Editorial: Court water ruling won't settle anything

Property owners have won a big court battle, thanks to a recent Texas Supreme Court ruling declaring that they own the water that flows under the land.

For those who adhere to the principle of strict adherence to property owners’ rights, this is good news. The case involved two Bexar County ranchers who sued the Edwards Aquifer Authority over limits the authority placed on the water they could pump to irrigate their crops. The landowners contended successfully, in the court’s opinion, that the limits impinged on their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; they said the water authority was taking their property without compensating them.

What does this mean for the 96 groundwater districts in the state? Can districts in the Texas Panhandle, for example, place restrictions on farmers in an effort to preserve precious water supplies?

Many Texas officials are hailing the decision as a victory for property owners. And it is.

What’s more, cities such as Amarillo — which has purchased tremendous amounts of water rights — also have been handed a victory by the court. Amarillo’s purchase of these rights allows the city to virtually guarantee abundant water for the next century. The court decision protects the city’s right to use the water as it sees fit.

There is a larger issue at stake. It’s the future of the water and whether local water authorities can act on behalf of all landowners who also depend on the availability of groundwater. The state has a huge stake in what figures to be a titanic struggle, particularly as our water supplies keep dwindling in the decades ahead.

Water management and control is a highly complicated matter in Texas. The state treats groundwater differently than it does surface water, which it regulates tightly. Might there be a way for the state to handle groundwater issues the way it does the water in our rivers and lakes?